Kickstarter Goals Abandoned?!?

A recent negative review of 7 Days to Die on Steam made the claim that the kickstarter goals have seemingly been abandoned by the developers. The reviewer encouraged his readers to google 7 Days to Die Kickstarter to see for themselves. So I did. Here is my analysis. Please feel free to add your own feedback and feelings about how 7 Days in its current state compares to the original vision presented to gamers in order to get their backing.

Navezgane is what is being described here and seeing the difference in the game when it first released and the A17 screenshots there is no doubt the developers have delivered on this promise. The world of Navezgane is being lovingly designed. In fact, many fans wish TFP would put less effort into Navezgane and more into Randomly Generated Worlds. Yes, the variety of forests will be reduced to simply "forest" and "burnt forest" and the plains biome is no more represented as a full biome but counting sub-biomes there is a lot more variety in the world than was mentioned in the original goal. A+

2) Points of Interest - Discover hundreds of great Points of Interest ranging from caves, campsites to cities and skyscrapers. Each and every building can be explored inside and out.

POI's are going to be better than ever in A17 and with level designing for many and sleepers plus the helper blocks for full and empty versions of containers they are more interesting and varied than I think even TFP envisioned when they made that goal originally. A+

3) Dynamic Story Generation - The story unfolds through our "Dynamic Story Generation System" which guides the player to other survivors, better loot and undiscovered Points of Interest through story note quests.

There is no dynamic story generation as of yet other than the rudimentary beginnings in the form of the second quest of the game that guides you to your first trader. There are notes that give quests and challenges but they aren't really part of an overarching story. The only other survivors at this point are the traders. Quests will give some life to this in A17 but even those are all side quests with no main storyline quest chain implemented. D-

4) Basic Survival - Scavenge the world for food and water maintaining and boosting health, food, stamina, and hydration levels. Grow and harvest a variety of crops and hunt, track or domesticate a multitude of wildlife to live off the land.

While there will always be controversy between veterans and newbs & hardcore and casuals about whether there is truly any meaningful threat to survival in the game nobody can deny that the elements of managing hunger and thirst and stamina and health are in the game. You can farm a variety of crops and you can hunt. Tracking and domesticating are absent however. C

5) Day and Night Game Play - Spend the day looting, mining, crafting and building up your forts defenses as light slows down and weakens the zombies. Hold up somewhere safe at night as the lunar cycle speeds up and strengthens the zombies.

This has been a staple of gameplay from the beginning. The addition of the blood moon enhanced the lunar cycle effect of strengthening the zombies. There is some controversy in the community about how fun blood moon hordes are on a regimented weekly schedule. A

Everything on that list has been delivered. The 5x5 Crafting system was also delivered but then ultimately cut and changed for a different system. Depending on how strongly you feel about the grid crafting system will dictate how you feel about the fulfillment of this goal. I like what they've done. A+

7) Relentless and Special Enemies - Enemies will claw, jump, climb and break their way through the world in order to get to you. They can see, smell and hear the player and can work in a group. And watch out for the unique special infected enemies like the Acid Puking Hulk whose acidic vomit can melt blocks.

This goal has been met and exceeded in some ways. Smell is currently broken and the AI was pathetic in A16. In A17 enemies will be relentless once again and there are plans for more special infected enemies. Based on current status I would probably mark TFP low on this just for the circle running zombies alone but I also know what A17 is bringing so I have to grade it up in anticipation. B

8) Block Physics and Stability - Our Physics System simulates real-time structural integrity, durability, and mass. Blocks don't float in the air nor can you build an unsound unsupported structure. Build it right or watch it come crumbling down. Weak blocks can even fall from the weight of the player or zombies.

7 Days to Die nails this hands down. Building is so much more interesting than in other floating block voxel games. A+

9) Item Quality and Food & Water Purity - Every item in the game has a quality level and degrades with use and combine items to create better items. All food and water items have a purity level and the higher the purity level, the higher the health and stamina benefits. Improve crafting to make better items. Improve cooking to make purer food and water.

This goal is technically met for food and water purity but just at a basic meh level. It remains to be seen if TFP will deepen this aspect of the game or add a spoilage system for food. Item quality and degradation is good. B-

10) Stealth and Distraction System - Crouch and sneak your way past enemies or throw objects to distract them. Find or craft sight, sound, or smell deterrents and attractor recipes and items to exploit the sight, hearing, or smell of zombies to throw them off track.

Stealth was implemented for the first time in A16 but because of the horrible AI it wasn't challenging or very fun. A17 does a lot to fix that. However, as far as distractors we basically have rocks that we can throw. That is fun to do and A17 fixes that strategy as well....but there is not yet a variety of distractors that take advantage of sight, sound, and smell and no attractor recipes yet in the game. D+

This is in progress now. We saw the first iterations of the XP and Skill Tree systems during the past few alphas. In A17 we will see the final version that will ship with the completed game. A17 will introduce a new power move for melee but there are not yet any special finishing moves. B-

12) Solo, Cooperative and Multiplayer - Play solo, coop or multiplayer in our unique Zombie Nomad Mode be a human, a bandit, or a zombie for a no rules experience. Watch the leader boards and fight to be the Big Clan of the Wasteland or the Duke o Navezgane.

Technically the goal of different play modes is met. You can play solo, coop, or pvp as you desire. The implementation of these modes favors solo and coop with little support shown to pvp up to this time. You can certainly play as a survivor or as a bandit but there is currently no way to play as a zombie so that feature is still missing. C

13) Creative User Tools - Build your own worlds and play them with friends using the Creative Mode Tools featuring hundreds of block shapes, prefabs and random generation tools. Create dedicated servers with your own unique game rules and settings.

A17 will see the first iteration of this goal being implemented on an official level. C

Last edited by Roland; 10-13-2018 at 12:11 AM.
Reason: Fixed my recollection of what the review stated per Kubikus

Looking at this list makes me wonder who in their right mind could think this game is abandoned or not following the pathway marked out for it from the very beginning. I read posts by people complaining that the game has lost its way because of the perks and skills and XP and yet those are goals listed from the very beginning. [removed incorrect conclusion about the vehicles goal]

Kudos to TFP for having a vision and sticking to the vision while at the same time going above and beyond with additional awesome features. If you disagree with my grades or have a different point of view please share but make sure to keep things civil.

TFP has definitely not abadoned 7 Days to Die, and in fact the developers gave more than what was promised from the Kickstarter, this person needs to reread the Kickstarter and play the game since they are either clearly trolling, or upset with the alpha 17 delay.

In looking at some of the other negative comments on steam most of these are about alpha 17 and it's delay which I think (and hope) once alpha 17 releases that TFP will go back to a normal release cycle which will help people not to be so negative. In the interim, people really need to understand how software development works as they think it's easier said than done but in fact it takes a lot of work especially when you upgrade the framework, so as my daddy would say if you want it done now do it yourself, otherwise quit b*tching.

People that have been with 7DTD from the beginning need to continue and have faith in TFP.

Yeah, I don't feel the game is abandoned or moving towards a different direction. Yeah a lot of things have changed and a lot more things will probably change. Some of those things are put it and need to be changed to balance. Some things been added and takin out because I better improve idea came about afterwards. Some things was more place holders (might not be the right word *shrug*) to have it playable or to get something else to work while working in other important things.

I feel and could be wrong is that some people seen a game out and it was like this and something changed and now it isn't the same game when they bought it. When they bought it they treat it like they bought a finish game and upset when something changes. Then you have the ones that think they should get a update every 3 months or something and when they don't get one then you get these developers......... I say the hell with them personally and most likely those that complain will go away after the update and play A17 like the rest and will come back once the next update is announced. Personally think TFP are doing a great job and say keep up the good work.

5) Day and Night Game Play - Spend the day looting, mining, crafting and building up your forts defenses as light slows down and weakens the zombies. Hold up somewhere safe at night as the lunar cycle speeds up and strengthens the zombies.

I need to remember to quote this at people when they say that having a safe place that you can retreat to at night is bad and you should never be safe anywhere...

Well, i said it in the other thread already. A lot of EA customers these days are simply spoiled brats. Canīt sugarcoat that after reading a ton of reviews that basically just where whining about a too slow paces in several EA games, including a TON of posts that demand a game beeing done in like 3 years.

Good work from TFP in this game. And yet the reviews donīt tell that. Itīs a sad joke. I wonder how we survived like the 80īs where it took years for a movie to become available on a VHS after release....

or not following the pathway marked out for it from the very beginning.

A game is an assortment of systems that communicate with each other. How they communicate is important. Kickstarter goals are a general idea of what the game will feature. How each feature is implemented is also important.

Two games with the same kickstarter goals can end up being very different. One can turn out to be brilliant, engaging and fun, the other can turn out to be boring, forgettable and shoddy.

So about 7DTD I'll quote some things I wrote recently in another thread, because it's a pain to get into more detail atm and none likes huge walls of text anyway.

What I am trying to say is that, while modding is and should be a big part towards enriching the game, TFP can't rely on them to "complete" it. Of course the general term "complete", may mean different things for each person. One example of an already "complete" game, in my eyes, that gets enriched with mods is Fallout:NV. The reason why I don't consider 7DTD to be complete no matter what goals they achieve is because I think it has many "incoherent" elements. One example of those imo are the various survival elements - like food, which is virtually exploited by the game only in the first couple of hours of gameplay, since there is no food spoilage, or like death, which essentially has no impact despite the presence of all these survival elements (injuries, diseases, hunger etc) that has been put into the game. Same applies to the abrupt progression curve that essentially allows you to skip a lot of content. Or as another example, in a more general scope the game is advertised as survival, but gives you ways to skip having to survive. In other words, what I mean by "incoherent" or "incomplete" is that the game contains a lot of things that get countered by others.

Same with wellness etc, maybe you remember me posting about it from time to time.

Originally Posted by Roland

I read posts by people complaining that the game has lost its way because of the perks and skills and XP and yet those are goals listed from the very beginning.

And now some whining - RPG elements are nice to have but I really wish that wasn't their focus. Have played most survival games in existence, but I daresay 7DTD has the largest (unrealised) potential when it comes to becoming an amazing survival experience. Food spoilage, a more smooth, long-term progression curve and more intuitive challenges (less superzombies/frame-skipping dogs etc, more RNG combat behavior) would be a start.

Like you said, food/water (and many more survival elements) exist and you have to use them at intervals. This, in no way, earns it the "survival tag" (among other genres).

Perks & XP being promised, has nothing to do with how they were implemented. Before they were implemented I was excited about them too. For example perks and XP can either work in harmony with the rest of the game and enrich it, or change it radically for example, by being the focus. Nevermind some things that were a matter of balance among perks like Quality Joe. Zombies awarding exp alone, can turn this game into a "different" game - this was more apparent a few patches ago. RPG elements also creeped into survival elements - wellness or other food "buffs", reminded me more of what food is in a pure RPG (like DnD games, or fallout) with some flat minor bonuses and fewer "realistic" survival implications.

My final verdict is that 7 days is a great sandbox game with a fukton of potential, but besides the first couple of hours, I could never enjoy its survival experience at all. Also I don't enjoy its RPG elements as much as in Fallout (for other reasons) or its TD elements as much as in GemTD. And nowadays gameplay, or enemies as I explain in this recent thread, weren't quite what I expected when seeing this trailer https://youtu.be/aZCXqoKSQ5c?t=8 or playing the first alphas. Yes, "technically", they did not lie, but as I said at the start, kickstarter goals may have sufficiently been completed, but that doesn't mean we can all be happy about the way that happened. Blame my expectations.

Originally Posted by A Nice Cup of Tea

I need to remember to quote this at people when they say that having a safe place that you can retreat to at night is bad and you should never be safe anywhere...

crafting and building up your forts defenses as light slows down

A safe place, which you are supposed to make safe.
Remember that also.

When looking at the Kickstarter movie, its amazing how much 7D2D changed compared to the 5 years ago and how little really got added.

Graphics:

* Major improvements in lights, textures, ...
* Its bad when after 5 years some of the same assets are still used from the kickstarter. Look deep and you will see them
* At 2:12 waterfall in-game? ... I have yet to see any realistic water in-game after 5 years, let alone a waterfall.

UI:

* Food And Water indicator onscreen
* Map onscreen
* Ammo Count onscreen
* No more 5X5 crafting but lets be honest, the new solution is not much better when too many items ( in mods ) turns opening the menu into a 1 second freeze or selecting freeze or ...

Game Play:

* Look at that Zombie horde! 2:02 ... 40 or 50 active zombies, make the current zombie hordes look like Tea parties with friends. Downgraded for performance reasons.

* Trees fall into pieces leaving behind trunk. 2:40 ... Maybe its me but for some reason it feels more appealing when you actually need to pick things up. Removed for performance reasons.

* They can see, hear and smell. 3:02 ... Smell has been broken for ages..

* Hide your Livestock. 3:10 ... Livestock has never been in the game.

* Chain gun todding wasteland bandit ... Never in game.

* Even bosses like the Crazed Duke of Navaz game ... Never in game

* Army of mutated soldiers ... Never in game. Soldiers in game are only Zombie soldiers, not NPC mutated soldiers.

* You can even drop blocks on Zombies by setting your own traps ... Never seen falling blocks ever damage Zombies. So not in game.

* All foods and waters have a purity level, the higher the purity level, the higher the benefit. No in game ... Simply food with different stats.

* The lower the purity level, the more change for disease ... Heuu, no ... Unless you want to count clean and dirty water as "purity levels". I envision food and water the spoils and increases the change for diseases as the purity level drops, not two type of water.

* Boost your cooking skills to make purer food or water... Not ingame ... Simply combining ingredients to have more nutrients ( in game ), nothing to do with purity and no disease. Not in game ...

* Trow objects to distract / sneak past enemies ... Not in game.

* Craft smell attract or deter items to trow the zombies off track ... Not in game.

* Lean special finishing move using XP / Crafting for oa club. Not in game.

* 7D2D can be played Solo, Coop or multiplayer ... Coop? Coop is what you normally used to describe a game story mod ( mostly single player ) that can be played with a extra friend.

* 100s of points of interests ranging from

** Caves ( not in game anymore from several alphas ... another feature that was being reworked but silently got dumped )
** Bandit Camps ... Really ... the only bandits that have ever been in game is when mods add them to the game.

* You discovered Ranger Camp ... Discovery system is also not there...

* The story enfolds from our dynamic story generation system... Not in game, never been. A few simple quest items and that is it.

* The story system that guides the player to other survives ( NPC? ). NPC beyond traders dolls do not exist in the game.

* Better loot ... No, the quests only provide points and treasure maps only provide some loots as a treasure, not better loot...

* Points of interest from the story system. No ... Not in game.

* Food and water: You can boost your stats for increased health, stamina ( Those two are in game in limited form ). Increased strength, speed, jumping ability... Not in game

* Learn to hunt, trap or domesticate animals ... Trap is not in game. Domesticate is not in game.

* Like Deer, rabbits, wild boar, pigs, bears ... So in 5 years we have gone from this list to only include wolfs and chickens as more natural enemies / food sources.

* The day and night cycle dramatically affect the strength and speed of the zombies. No it does not affect the strength...

* multitude of wildlife to live off the land. ... The current selection of wildlife really does not feel like "a multitude of wildlife". Very few people hunt rabbit or chick because they are impossible to get. And resort going after pigs and deer.

7D2D present:

Wow, 7D2D sounds like a great game in that kickstarter movie. Maybe i missed some parts in that movie but after 5 years a lot of the actual game play CONTENT is still missing. You know, the stuff that some people here have been whining about for ages

I stated this before but 5 years to go from what is in that movie, to the current 7D2D is ridiculous. It comes really down the the fact that so many game mechanics have been implements, scrapped, reimplemented, scrapped again, ...

And:

Tom Clark badass Zombie Backer gets a zombie likeness of himself in the game!

* More items and weapons. Looks like a lot of the basic weapons that we use in current 7D2D are already shown in the 5 year old movie.
* More special infected enemies with more abilities... Unless i am wrong the only special zombie that is not present is the 5 year old movie, is the spider zombie. We have normal zombies, puking zombies, ... It does not look like there is a lot of new variation among enemies. Ferals as cheap game mechanic but it do not really see any new abilities beyond the spider and maybe the exploding cop.

300.000:

* Season weather effects ... We do not have Seasons in 7D2D. Only regional weather effects based upon the biome. We do not get cold winters in the desert, snow melting in the winter biome, etc.. Misleading at best.

350.000:

* More Wild Animals: Mountain Lions, Coyotes, Cats and Dogs ... Not in game.
* Animals can turn into Zombies Too ( Zombie bears! ). Animals is plural, not singular. So Zombie dogs, Zombie bears ... And vultures now. No * Zombie pigs, zombie rabbits, zombie deer, zombie ... You get the point. The way its written any animal can be a zombie.

These are all paid for goals from the original kickstarter. And if we compare the video and the goals, you can really tell that half the game is still missing today.

I do mean it, seeing that 7D2D 5 year old movie got me existed and then i look at the current A16/A17 and ... you can only see how much is missing even more. People fighting about spam crafting or stuff like that, when really a lot of content is simply missing.

This explain why people complain about the lack of mid to late game content... So here is my counter reply on your A+ scores Roland... This really makes me want to cry to see what 7D2D was supposed to have been and how its evolved ( and been remade and remade and ... ). Graphics are nice and well but it feels like so much has gone into graphics and so much of the actual content has been forgotten. 5 Years is a long time to be missing that much...

A recent negative review of 7 Days to Die on Steam made the claim that all of the kickstarter goals have been abandoned by the developers.

I felt encouraged to find the review you speak of, it does not make "the claim that all of the kickstarter goals have been abandoned by the developers", but... Here it is:

Ah....this game.

It's a decent game, but in lieu of a regualr review, here is the real problem:

I found out this game is actually in alpha, and has been for awhile. The kickstarter promises have seemingly been abandoned and the games random (yearly) updates feels like it has made the game worse. The game is still fun, but I defintiely do not recommend this game. It's irritating seeing so many promises go unfuilled and a company not being held accountable. I would change my mind if the company even came out and apologized and explained themselves.

PLEASE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS BEHAVIOUR; DO NOT BUY THIS GAME.

You're not missing out on much either. Google 7 days to die kickstarter to see the whole story.

It says "seemingly", and refering to "the promises" as a whole, one could say said promises "have been abandonded" as soon as who made the promises decides to actually abandon only one of them.

However, of course it is wrong that anything has been abandoned. I strongly believe that the devs will fulfill every kickstarter promise and deliver more on top of that. As I do believe that 7dtd really is their lovechild (particularly Joel's). And it is such a great game, that it would be madness to ever abandon it, before it has reached ultimate perfection - which is impossibe. So they will continue working on the game until it's in the best state it can be, and after that, they'll continue releasing DLCs with additional bits and pieces.

One who hangs around the forums also will heavily disagree with all the many negative reviews that go along the lines of

Pretty sure the dev's are lying on a beach somewhere drinking cocktails or skiing in the alps or spending millions of dollars cash, anything other than developing this game any further.

Factually, this is utter nonsense.

However 2.0, Roland:

Originally Posted by Roland

Looking at this list makes me wonder who in their right mind could think this game is abandoned or not following the pathway marked out for it from the very beginning.

That's an easy one, allow me to enlighten you. For.. the n-th time...

Someone in their right mind, who is not an utter idiot, Roland, could think such things simply if they don't hang around the forums. That is all it takes. You could say that there is an A17 video linked in the Steam-news, which is true. But the video looks like next to nothing has changed, except that maybe there are a few new/better textures and you can see the arrows sticking in zombies. It doesn't go through the new perks, it doesn't show the new buff system, it doesn't take the bike, the jeep and the bicyle for a ride, it doesn't show zombies digging down, it doesn't show how zombies now wreck weak bases on horde night, it doesn't show the new weapon system, how attachments work and whatnot. Some stuff is explained, "something something more memory good" and such. But from the ""normies'"" perspective, it is a very uninformative video, not good enough to destroy assumptions of cocktail drinking devs and abandoned Kickstarter goals.

Which leads us to what, Roland..? The thing. That I said before. A couple of times now. It's not the customer who is stupid. It's the company who is "inefficient" in regard to providing the customer with relevant information about the state of the development process. The bits and pieces that staff sprinkles the forums with is good enough to let the forum visitors know that development is still going strong. But ""normies"" don't visit the forums.

And that's a fact no "haha look at the nonsense that guy writes" post can ever trump.

TFP want to do another project (Part2 or something different, IDK) should show most people that they want to be considered a credible company so when they start something new, people will be looking forward to it (money in hand).

They cant do a successful next project if they do a bad job of 7D2D, so, they will do a damn good job, I'm sure of it.